back from sports day for reception age - very upset

[Spatz]

Just been to our first sports day for about 25 years! Shocked by the treatment of small children - I thought the world had moved on. DDs reception class had to do egg and spoon, obstacle and sprint races then some throwing and jumping. The events were all won by the same few biggest children (all boys).

As far as it went that's okay because they had fun in the events, but the prizegiving at the end went on for about 15 mins while each of six races had three certificates and a medal for the winner - some lads had 5 or 6 prizes by the end and most children ended up with nothing. They became sadder and sadder as they realised they wouldn't get a certificate and many ended up in tears. At the end the head of the junior school said they should all go to their class teacher to make sure they got a little 'I'm a good sport' thing to pin on.

How are other sports days run? Is this normal?

not coffee table psychology, just fact

It isn't 'fact' - see my post on the difference between competition and goals / achivement!

I'm the bloody ex-international athlete here, you know

I must say I have lived a fairly long and full life and I fail to see what possible lesson about "life" and "success" could be learned at a poxy half arsed primary sports day like te one described in the OP.
except perhaps "watch out for dog poo", and "always bring your own food".

Ah, but SUCH important lessons, Harpsi.

PMSL

life IS competive whether you're the bionic woman or not

that's so simplistic though, poppyflower, I mean what does that even mean?
life is competitive SO if you aren't the best, you should just give up?
I mean, there is room for all abilities in the world, ime. and happiness/fulfillment is NOT a competitive sport.
when I look back on my life I won't judge it's success on how many prizes I won.

or, indeed, on my success in using apostrophes

It means people are better at us and worse than us, we have to deal with it

yes, well we can learn that lesson when it matters. not when we lose in the egg and fkn spoon race.
(sorry I may be displaying my bias now. hoping fervently Blu wasn't International Egg and Spooner)

The kids with SEN who are being damaged by being included in m/s education Poppy. That's because they're not being included properly or else they should be in a different school equipped to meet their needs. And how they're being damaged is probably exactly how many children who are physically disadvantaged are damaged by being forced to participate in a traditional sports day where they cannot hope to win and may struggle even to take part.

As regards your own experience of learnign times tables Poppy, it sounds like you're of the 'never did me any harm' school. For everyone who says that, there's going to be at least one person saying 'it did me loads of harm' and a lot of people who say it are actually frightened to question whatever the 'it' was for all kinds of reasons and so continue to defend it. As levels of literacy and numeracy have actually improved over the last 100 years and education is now more accessible and equal it's just rubbish to hark back to a golden era where traditional methods were used and kids did better. Probably when you were at school kids with SEN all went to a special school regardless of whether this was the right environment for them which is why everyone in your class appeared to learn their tables. I wonder how many still rememebr them too.

I know from experience that if you humiliate a child or label him or her a failure s/he will respond badly just as is the case with adults. I think almost every badly behaved child I have ever taught is either struggling to meet the demands imposed on him or her or struggling with the legacy or reality of criticism or a being given a sense of failure from home or school. These kids understandably develop other kinds of coping strategies: bravado (I don't care anyway. This subject is rubbish and if you care about it you're weird/ a boff etc. I'm going to be a famous footballer so it doesn't matter if I can't read. I'm going to start my own business/ marry a footballer/ have children, I'm actually brilliant at this subject I'm just not trying/ can't be bothered etc etc), becoming the class comedian, violence or other forms of disruption.

As a teacher I am forced to have a very good idea of each of my students' abilities and where they are in relation to each other and local and national standards. Probably my students pick up this knowledge also. I would never force my students to compete and never intentionally humiliate one of them.

Also, I take Caligula's point about competition being more damaging and more unnecessary for v. young children but I think it can be equally damaging or more so just more hiddent for teen-agers. I remember having to watch my form compete in a sports day and seeing a teen-aged girl who was rather heavily endowed up top running and being jeered at by a bunch of older lads. I can only imagine what that damage that did to her but I can remember my own experience of being always the last to be picked for compulsory netball as one of many reasons for my lack of confidence as an adult and hating all competitive sport.

Do you know what. I really can't think of any competitions I've been involved in since leaving school apart from exams at university and job interviews (if you count these?). And exams are assessed according to national standards not winners or losers. Everything else I've worked for have been goals set by myself. What competitions do the rest of you do apart from the parents' race at your childs sports day? What am I missing?

My dp has been known to challenge others to a 'how many marshmallows can I get into my mouth at one go competition' but I've always resisted this one. Oh, and by the way, he's a PE teacher but the nice kind who runs sports days where students choose to participate and represent their form but can sit and cheer otherwise.

I really cannot work out how you can say levels of litercay and numrcay have improved say in the last 30 years, certainly since the crap teaching methods of the wooly liberals in the seventies took hold. They improved before then only because more people were educated and exactly how WERE they educated? You would not approve of the methods that produced these literate people.
You only have to look on so many public notices and signs now. The frequency of grammatical and spelling errors makes me wince and these are often on formal notices.
My father is a university professor. He has to mark many exam papers and says that the standard of English presented by the students on many levels is absolutely appalling. Yet he is not allowed to deduct marks for poor grammar or spelling.

meant literacy and numeracy!

I don't enter competitions either. However, I do have to negotiate and compromise a LOT with my kids, my partner and the people I work with. I know which skills I find more useful in my life.

That literacy and numeracy is improving is a fact Poppy in spite of what the Daily Mail may tell you. We now have a third of people going to university as opposed to the tiny minority of extremely wealthy people 100 years ago. The majority of students continue education past 16 and education to 16 is compulsory. It's not very long ago that you could leave school at 14 completely illiterate and spend the rest of your working life down the mines or whatever and this is what many people did. Increasing access to education and basic levels of literacy and numeracy for everyone strikes me as being more important than the odd misplaced apostrophe which we're all guilty of (or of which we are all guilty if you'd prefer me not to end a sentence with a conjunction). Shakespeare and Chaucer, considered our country's greatest poets, were both notoriously bad spellers (often spelling the same word many different ways in their work). Perhaps you and your dad would have failed them in the English competition you would no doubt have expected them to sit?

Well, Poppy, in your short post there is a total of 3 typos/ spelling mistakes (literacy, numeracy and woolly). Does that mean your arguments are any less pertinent? Usually I would say no (I only usually get cross when poor spelling impedes meaning) but in your case it doesn't say much for your teachers' methods does it? Whereas, I was taught by the 70s liberals you despise and my spelling is perfick!

I am very late to this discussiong but I wanted to talk about this post:

"What incentive is there for anyone to do well and improve in any subject whether it be sport or an acaddemic subject if everyone who takes part is recognised with a certificate and there is no differnce bewteen someone who may be talented and someone just taking part."

I find this sort of attitude deeply depressing. Do you really believe that children are going to be motivated to achieve through life purely by getting certificates and medals? Have we completely given up on the idea that people might want to achieve just for the sake of it, because working hard at something you love is a joy, because contributing your excellence to society makes life worth living, because self-esteem comes from intrinsic motivation and not from some artificial, patronising bloody star chart?

I love what I do and I am bloody good at it. I have never competed with anyone else to do it. I get very little in the way of what is generally recognised as "rewards" for doing it. But it makes me incredibly happy to do the best I am capable of and I will go on doing it for as long as I can. This is what I want for my children - not certificates and competitions.

I wish the teachers at DD's school would read this - they are so misguided. We have had a crappy response to our letter from the head teacher including the fantastic paragraph:

"I agree that a lot of the medals and certificates went to the same children. It is worth remembering, though, that some of these children - especially those in Reception - are the ones who are not shining in their academic studies. It is a moment for them to receive recognition for something that they are very good at - in the way that a good musician will get recognition during a concert or that the academic will get recognition through the good work stars and prizes at speech day."

This is so filled with nonsense that I don't know where to start! Is there really a link between sporting ability and a lack of academic ability? And, as has been pointed out earlier on this thread, when the musical children play and the academic ones are given stars are the others expected to perform in front of parents and other students just to show how good the good ones really are?

I think it is scary that this man is running a school!

Well I have no idea what goes on in my children's sports day because parents aren't invited (they are both at infants). However they seem to come home happy, and that's all that really matters isn't it. I was awful at sport for many years until I found a sport that suited my lack of co-ordination, hatred of people throwing things at me, and the whole competitive thing - bad enough having to do something you are bad at without people watching and commenting at how awful you are! My children are still at that happy age of thinking they are great, and I think that's fantastic and to be encouraged. There is nothing quite like seeing the confidence with which they face the world, whether that be trying something new or assuming that every kid they meet will be their friend. I know it won't last long, and I want to savour it, not speed up it's decline. Of course they know that they won't always win at everything, and that sometimes other kids are better than they are, and it is good to see them being pleased for others successes, and coping with losing at family games/ not always getting the golden certificate or 10/10. But these things need a lot of careful support. The school of hard knocks approach produces winners and losers. There are always more losers than winners, and really what is the benefit of producing large numbers of children and eventually adults who think they are, and probably have learnt to be no good at things, whether that is sport, reading or anything else for that matter.

Hi Spatz do the reception children have a prize day too? Sounds a little like comparing apples and pears there

Hi Nooka! I haven't been to prize-giving yet - it's next week. I think the little kids will be very bored and there will be a couple of prizes for reception - just one or two children singled-out, I guess.

You are serious! Your school sounds very odd to me, I am afraid. I can't imagine anything more inappropriate for reception children than having to sit still for hours whilst some teacher drones on, and children (most of whom they don't know) get prizes, with no reward in sight for them. My ds would go ballistic - sitting still for 10 mins is a huge struggle for him (worth giving a prize for). Our school does a weekly golden certificate, where children are rewarded for various good deeds, but they all come to the front together for it and get the one clap, and then the class prize for standing quietly in the line get awarded too. I think there might be a prize giving for the top year, but for reception - that's ridiculous!

At my DS's school, they got shapes to sit on and if they managed to keep their bottom on the shapes for x number of minutes, they got a sticker on the shape. When they got 10 stickers they were allowed to take the shape home and make a new shape. DS would come home with a full shape of stickers every 2 or 3 days. The number of minutes they were expected to sit still for increased the longer they were at school. But what strikes me is that the school acknowledged the difficulty little children have in sitting still for any length of time and tried to approach it positively.

Sounds great Caligula. Unfortunately fidgeting runs in the family (although we are all skinny, so there are some benefits!). I think that that sort of training would have been excellent for ds.